"Illegal" Is a Label of Pride, not Prejudice

Dear Mexican: I believe that the words people use to describe other people, intentionally or unintentionally, reflect their political values. But I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, so I write to you. In a previous column, you described Cesar Chavez as hating “illegals,” and as being ethnocentric early in his career.

This isn’t the first time that you’ve used the word “illegal” to describe undocumented immigrants, and I have problems with that. Now, if we are going to use that term to describe undocumented immigrants, then a lot of U.S. citizens who have committed crimes such as drug trafficking, corruption, murder, embezzlement, rape, warrantless wiretapping, harassment, stealing, and many, many others, including the ones perpetrated by our departed president, are really the ones who should be called ILLEGALS.

Using this term only plays out to the right-wing agenda (the Minutemen, Rush Limbaugh, the Real Housewives of Orange County, the wackos in Congress, etc.) and contributes to the bashing of immigrants and Latinos in general, whether they are documented or not.

You must realize that Latinos, especially if they are poor and uneducated, are perhaps the last “safe” target for bigotry and scapegoating in our land of the free and home of the brave.

—Saw You Moderate a Panel Discussion Once

Dear Pocha: This was the question I fished out of your ramble: “Why do you use the term “illegal immigrant” in your column, when it’s such a hateful term to describe human beings?” The easy answer is that this is my column, and why aren’t you upset that I regularly call Mexicans wabs, gabachos gabachos, African-Americans negritos, Asian-Americans chinitos, Muslims Mohammedans and bash Guatemalans (the true last acceptable target for bigotry) every couple weeks?

Read a bit more closely, and you’ll realize any slur used against a group of gente in ¡Ask a Mexian! is for satirical, reappropriating reasons; the only sacred vaca I’ll never slander is undocumented college students. On a more fundamental level, however, I use “illegal immigrant” to make a point.

As it stands, it’s the most moderate term to describe those millions of folks who live in this country in violation of immigration law. Think about it: Know-nothings love to use “illegal alien” because it allows them to describe Mexicans as an invading menace.

Aztlanistas, on the otra hand, use “undocumented immigrant,” as gratuitous a bit of P.C. pendejada as Chicana/o. For leftists like yourself, Saw You Once, to avoid using “illegal” in describing someone’s immigration status implies that something is shameful about the word and their status, and we should all therefore avoid using it.

Not this Mexican. On that note, I’ll always use “illegal immigrant” and “illegals” with pride and turn the question around to others, one asked long ago by the iconic Chicago Chicano punk group Los Crudos: Ilegal, ¿y que?

I’m engaged to a Mexican who doesn’t have papers, but I’m an American. For two years, he supported me while I was a stay-at-home mom. But recently, he has been unable to work because his work permit expired, so I got a good job and started supporting the family.

To me, he is doing the best thing he could for his family by being a stay-at-home dad. Why is it that his familia can’t be just as supportive about it? Since I started working, they haven’t stopped nagging at him about him not being the man of the house, and letting a woman support him.

If he doesn’t have a problem with it, why should they care?

—Chulo, I’m Home!

Dear Gabacha: What a bola of pendejos! Let me assure you that your problem is all in your man’s family and not a Mexican thing, since a gabacho solely supporting us is as big a Mexican wet dream as retaking over the southwest United States and Guatemala for good.